Peugeot 508 Active e-HDI micro-hybrid

No, it's not an e-car for very small people...

Up a gear

The impressive CO2 figures are only achieved with the help of the six-speed electronically controlled manual gearbox (ECG). Used as a full automatic around town, the gear changes were far too clumsy for my liking. Once on the open road, it improved dramatically.

Extremely comfortable seating

Luckily, you can take control with the steering column-mounted flappy paddles or override things completely by moving the gearbox into a fully manual mode.

In semi-auto, you can smooth your progress by anticipating gear changes but the best bet is full manual which leaves all the cog-swapping decisions to the driver while still letting the software worry about changing down as you come to a standstill and thus the whole stop-start malarkey.

In a nutshell, while the ECG is clearly not as clever as the best dual-clutch systems about, if you can’t work out how to progress smoothly in a 508 you just haven’t tried very hard.

Plenty of space in't back

Under the skin, the 508 is much the the same as Citroën’s C5 but with a different suspension set-up. Out go the hydropneumatics and in comes MacPherson struts at the front and a multi-link independent set-up at the rear.